Objective: To determine the effect of a single intravenous dose of tranexamic acid on intraoperative bleeding, duration of surgery and surgical field visualization during endoscopic sinus surgery. Methods: Study Design: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Setting: Tertiary Government Hospital in Quezon City Participants: 10 patients aged 18-75 years old diagnosed with chronic rhinosinusitis with or without nasal polyposis and unresponsive to medical treatment, who underwent endoscopic sinus surgery from September 2016 to August 2017, were randomly allocated to treatment group and control group respectively. The “odd” numbers were assigned to the treatment group (intravenous Tranexamic acid) given 1 dose of 100mg/ml (500mg tranexamic acid per 5 ml) tranexamic acid slow intravenous drip 1 hour prior to the procedure, while the “even” numbers assigned to the control group received the same amount of normal saline solution. Results: The mean duration of surgery of the tranexamic group was 185 minutes (standard deviation, SD 55.23) and the control group was 122.6 minutes (SD 42.03) showing no significant difference (p=.08). The mean blood loss of the tranexamic group was less at 240ml (SD 108.39) compared with the control group at 290ml (SD 74.16), although there was no statistically significant difference (p=.42). Intraoperative surgical field assessed by the surgeon based on the Boezart grading scale showed that 2 (40%) of the tranexamic group had higher bleeding score compared with the placebo group. However, this was not found to be statistically significant (p=.460). Due to the small sample size, a type II error occurred with alpha level of 0.05 and estimated power of 0.0885, with not enough basis to refute that a single dose of intravenous tranexamic acid has no effect in improving surgical field visualization during endoscopic sinus surgery. No drug side effects were noted after administration until after surgery. Conclusion Single dose intravenous tranexamic acid in functional endoscopic sinus surgery decreased mean intraoperative blood loss (but this was statistically insignificant), but its effect on surgical field visualization cannot totally be assessed due to small sample size. There was also no change in the observed duration of surgery. No untoward side effects associated were noted from administration of the drug until after the surgery finished.
Administration, Intravenous ; Tranexamic Acid ; Sinusitis